Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/211

 sleeves, that, therefore, Jesus Christ and his apostles used them.

4. Though there may be no christian country in which some species of christianity is not, more or less, established, i. e. more or less favoured by the government; yet there are countries in which less favour is shown to the prevailing mode than in others, and in which much less care is taken to guard it, as in Holland, Russia, Pensilvania, and I believe others of our American colonies. Now, let an enquiry be made into the state of these countries, and see whether the result of it will be favourable, or unfavourable to establishments. What tendency to inconvenience has there been observed in those states in which church government is most relaxed, and what superior advantages, in point of real happiness, are enjoyed in those countries in which it is strained to the highest pitch. I have no doubt of the result of such an inquiry turning out greatly in favour of the relaxation of religious establishments, if not of their total suppression. A just